Queensland Tourism Minister Jan Jarratt says the Qantas dispute has forced the State Government and tourism operators into damage control mode.

The state's tourism authorities say the Qantas industrial action could cripple the industry.

Ms Jarratt says the temporary grounding of the airline's national fleet will have lasting effects on tourism.

She says all agencies need to double their efforts to restore Australia's image as a reliable destination.

"We really will need to rebuild the brand name and the confidence in the brand name and partly that's Qantas' role, but Queensland has also suffered, as has the name of Australia," she said.

"Tourism Queensland will be redoubling our efforts to try to get the message out there that we are a great place to come, that you can get here."

Ms Jarratt says any lingering damage to the Qantas brand will impact on the industry.

"I'm not wanting to get into the blame game here but it is disappointing that it came to a situation where flights were grounded," she said.

"I hope that there is no long-term damage to the Qantas brand although in the short-term I think they have some issues there and that's an issue for all of us in the tourist industry."

Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser says the Qantas dispute could have been disastrous for the state's economy.

"With the air fleet back in the air today, the impact is going to be limited to the last couple of days, but this did have the potential to get into the billions of dollars very quickly," he said.

"It remains to be seen what sort of brand damage has been done to brand Australia and brand Queensland, because of this episode and the many people stranded around the world."

Longreach Mayor John Palmer, where Qantas was founded in central-west Queensland, says the grounding of the fleet has damaged the airline's reputation.

Qantas held its first board meeting in Winton in 1921 before the company relocated to Longreach.

Mr Palmer says he hopes the dispute is nearing an end.

"Let's stop the industrial action and get on with what we need to do and that's fly the red kangaroo again, mate - let's get up in the air again."

'Tourist angst'

Col McKenzie, from the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, says businesses, particularly in the far north, have recently seen a small recovery from the impact of global and domestic events.

He says he is concerned a resolution will come too late for some operators.

"It could easily be the final straw for quite a lot of tourism operators, both marine and terrestrial," he said.

"They've gone through almost a purgatory over the last two years and we've got operators saying 'look, we're finally up on last year's numbers by five or 10 per cent and we might see some light over the horizon and now this'," he said.

Mr McKenzie says the airline dispute is reducing confidence in the tourism industry.

"The rolling strikes that Qantas has been having certainly have created a lot of angst among the tourists," he said.

"They arrive late, they miss connections and when they get somewhere, they have to wait hours to get their luggage.

"That kind of stuff certainly impacts and I can understand why Qantas wants to just get this over with."

Tourism Whitsundays Peter O'Reilly spokesman says tourist numbers will plummet over the coming weeks as a direct result of the Qantas dispute.

There are no direct Qantas flights into the region, but Mr O'Reilly says the temporary grounding of the airline's national fleet has stopped tourists accessing feeder flights.

He says there will be a significant drop-off in tourist numbers.

"The trunk routes that feed those flights, they're the ones that will be broken for us and those flights from Brisbane certainly we won't be seeing the people making those flights," he said.

"Certainly there will be a lot of empty seats on the planes coming into the Whitsundays over the last 24, 48 hours.

"There's no doubt it will have hurt us in terms of getting our tourists here and we will be seeing it this week without doubt that there will be a dip in numbers.

"That will be something that will continue for a little while because there will be people who have cancelled four-week holidays because they've gotten off to such a bad start.

"It will be hurting us for a little while, there's no doubt about that."

Extra trains

"We have put additional services on today out of Brisbane we will have a train that will operate all the way to Cairns and also in the other direction from Cairns all the way to Brisbane," he said.

"We operate trains up and down the coast because that is what our role is - to provide additional capacity and that's what we have done.

"For customers that have tickets on Qantas, we have provided an additional discount to allow them to travel on our services this week."

Meanwhile, Swiss mining giant Xstrata says it is still evaluating the impact of the temporary grounding of the Qantas fleet on its operations.

The company says most of its staff live in Mount Isa in north-west Queensland but alternative plans are being arranged for those left stranded.

Fly-in, fly-out workers at Ernest Henry Mines mostly fly out of Townsville in north Queensland on the QantasLink service, which has not been affected.

Health impact

The State Government says some elective surgery may need to be rescheduled as a result of the Qantas grounding.

It says patients in need of urgent medical care will continue to be transported by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The Government says Queensland Health is arranging alternative transport for medical supplies where necessary.

Transport Minister Annastacia Palaszczuk says there is an extra train service from Brisbane to Cairns today, and one from Townsville to Brisbane.

"We are working with Queensland Rail to put on extra services," she said.

"We want to make sure that the public is kept well informed and we're doing everything we can to ensure that not only do we have extra train services, but also whether there's any extra bus capacity as well."